Al-makhdu’un / The Dupes (2023 restoration by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project)

Tewfik Saleh: المخدوعون / Al-makhdu’un / The Dupes (SY 1972).

المخدوعون / Petetyt / De bedragna / Gli ingannati / Les Dupes.

    Syria 1972. Director: Tewfik Saleh. Sog.: dalla novella Rijāl Fī Al-Shams (Men in the Sun, 1963) di Ghassan Kanafani. Scen.: Tewfik Saleh. F.: Bahgat Heidar. M.: Farin Dib, Saheb Haddad. Mus.: Solhi El-Wadi. Int.: Mohamed Kheir-Halouani (Abou Keïss), Abderrahman Alrahy (Abou Kheizarane), Bassan Lofti Abou-Ghazala (Assaad), Saleh Kholoki (Marouane), Thanaa Debsi (Om Keïss). Prod.: National Film Organization (Siria). DCP. D.: 107’. Bn.

    Language: Arabic. 

    Restored in 2023 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with the National Film Organization and the family of Tewfik Saleh. Special thanks to Mohamed Challouf and Nadi Nekol Nas. Funding by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. The 4K restoration used a 35 mm dupe negative preserved by the Bulgarian National Film Archive (Bulgarska Nacionalna Filmoteka) and was completed by L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory

    DCP from The Film Foundation with English subtitles. E-subtitles in Italian by Robert De Buoi.
    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna: Cinemalibero.

    Introduced by Anni Kanafani and Mohamed Tewfik Saleh.
    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 27 June 2023.

Tahar Cheriaa, Tewfik Saleh (1971, as quoted Bologna 2023 catalog): " A leader without followers, a master without disciples, Tewfik Saleh represents a unique case in Egyptian cinema. With nine films to his credit (in addition to material shot in India that the Egyptian censors forbade him to edit), Saleh’s work, which has always been uncompromising, today constitutes a coherent corpus that cannot be completely ascribed to the social realism so dear to Egyptian critics. The points of contact between his films and those of Chahine, Abu Seif, Barakat, Kamel Morsi, etc. are sometimes more apparent than anything else; certainly all these filmmakers tell the stories of the common people, of the fellah (farmer) who bravely works the land in an expanse of mud, of the under-proletariat that survives in the miserable neighbourhoods of Cairo or Alexandria. They certainly look at the destitute and marginalised with humanity, arousing empathy in the viewer. But these directors, almost all of whom belong to the middle class, still lack the lucidity and commitment that come from a true social and political consciousness… This is where Saleh stands out; he is, like Sembène, a true Marxist filmmaker for whom making a film is a true political act. Here is what he himself told me about The Dupes: “I worked on the adaptation of Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani – a militant of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine assassinated on 9 July 1972 in Beirut by the Zionist secret services (Mossad) – from 1964 to 1971. My intentions and my interpretation of the novel and its characters changed in light of the tragic events that took place in the region in June 1967 and September 1970. In the latest version, I wanted to emphasise the element of escape that characterises the Middle East at this time. Three characters from three different generations, representing three phases of the same collective problem, decide to flee their situation in search of what each considers or hopes to be their individual salvation. But the end is very different from their expectations; there is no individual salvation from a collective tragedy. And this is the lesson that history teaches us every day”. " Tahar Cheriaa, Tewfik Saleh, in Dossiers du cinéma: Cinéastes, edited by Jean-Louis Bory, Claude Michel Cluny, Casterman, Paris 1971

AA: Anni Kanafani and Mohamed Tewfik Saleh stated in their introductions that The Dupes, directed by Tewfik Saleh (1926-2013) is based on Ghassan Kanafani's story Men in the Sun. It was a miracle that the movie was made. It is now the 50th anniversary of its first screening.

One of the most powerful movies of the Festival, the 50 year old The Dupes, directed in Syria by the Egyptian Tewfik Saleh, is more topical now than when it was made. The inhabitants of Palestine and Israel remain in the trap laid by the colonial powers after WWI and the demise of the Ottoman Empire. After WWII, Jews were forced into exile both from Europe and the Mahgreb and other Middle Eastern countries. The Arabs of Palestine remain unwelcome everywhere, their situation made far worse by the excesses of Israel's nationalist militarist governments.

The desert trek of the three refugees with destination Kuwait is grimly naturalistic. But Tewfik Saleh creates also a work of highly charged poetry, with deeply reverberating symbolism that grows organically from the fabula. The sense of existential despair is worthy of Kafka.

One of the greatest refugee stories of all time, The Dupes is also a suspense thriller that has been justifiedly compared with The Wages of Fear. Let's remember that one of the starting points of William Friedkin's adaptation Sorcerer was the Damascus Gate.

It is time and again a source of infinite shame and horror that the birthplace of the three great monotheistic religions (all sharing the Ten Commandments, including "Thou Shalt Not Kill") is a hotbed of war, hate and discrimination.

The fate of the three refugees in the tank of the truck evokes the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Visually, the film is laconically expressive. Deep emotion is conveyed via the tragic and compelling music score.

The visual quality of the restoration is clean and sober, occasionally with a duped look (pun unintended).

P.S. Read Imogen Sara Smith's review in Reverse Shot, 6 October 2023.

https://reverseshot.org/reviews/entry/3125/dupes